The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy - hard to find?

starseed · Post by **starseed** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 18:53 -0700

Hello everybody,

I was on vacation this summer in British Columbia, Canada and I stopped into a comic shop in Victoria (Vancouver island) called Curious Comics. There wasn't really much that interested me that day, but I had always wanted to check out Usagi yojimbo but never had bought any of it before.

Anyhow, I wanted smething to read for the plane ride on the way back so I bought Book 5 & 6.

I was immediately hooked after reading those trades and I wanted to get more Usagi! When I returned to my home province of Newfoundland I was startled to discover that the comic book shops there had little to no backissues and only a few of the trades.

So I had to get them ordered in. However, the one trade that I absolutely could not get ordered as it was not on the order list was the Dragon Bellow Conspiracy, which I had been told is one of the best Usagi ttrades around!

Through this forum I was able to find out that I could order The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy directly through Fantagraphics books website:

www.fantagraphics.com

I had a little trouble with customs and I got the book after almost a months wait today...but I'm wondering why was this book so hard to get? Has anyone had any else had troubles with finding the trades??

Cheers!

ziritrion · Post by **ziritrion** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 5:21 -0700

I bought mine from Amazon and had no trouble at all finding it. The one I did have problems with was Book 7: Gen's Story, because it had run out of print at the time (but eventually I found a comic-book store in Barcelona specialized in USA imports, and it had ALL the trades as well as the comic-books! I buy every issue there.) Book 4 is probably at the same stage by now. When Fantagraphics reprints it, it'll be available again, I guess.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 6:58 -0700

Yeah, I'd say it probably just hasn't been printed in a while.

I know they recently reprinted the very 1st Usagi trade from fantagraphics and thats how I got that one from my local comic shop this fall.

The online market is always the best place to get hard to find stuff though.

You do have to be careful, but for the most part the dealers are pretty good.

I'm very impatient so I always like to have my items expedited as quick as possible, but thats just me I'm strange hehe

Cheers,

starseed · Post by **starseed** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 7:00 -0700

ooops, that above message was from me, I forgot to login. My bad.

Cheers,

Sebastian · Post by **Sebastian** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 11:45 -0700

I had no problem in obtaining my copy of the "Dragon Below Conspiracy". I've bought it the day after Mr. Sakai visited Gdansk- it came out on the day of the visit (I'm guessing it was because of marketing

), but I haven't had any money with me then. So the next day I went to the store, took one book, opened it and saw a Usagi sketch with an autograph. I've checked two other books, they were unsigned. Guess I just had luck.

starseed · Post by **starseed** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 12:35 -0700

Hey Sebastian,

I'd say Lucky you! Fortunately for me, I now have all 18 trade paperbacks and I've begun collecting the single issues so that I don't have to wait until the next Trade comes out to keep up to date on the ongoing story.

I think I read somewhere that it is due out in March.

Book 19 is called Fathers & sons and if you have the recently released Art of Usagi you can see what the color cover will look like. Its Usagi with Jotaro on his shoulder.

Cheers,